How different can two trips be? Let me count the ways! COMPLETE!

[irene_dsc]

When we left, we were finishing up our safari.

So, what to do next? We had a while until our next fp+. I managed to talk the kids into watching Flights of Wonder, yay! They were skeptical, but I was getting tired of them not wanting to watch *any* shows. And they always like animals, so I figured that they wouldn't suffer too badly. I was right - they enjoyed it. But I don't have any photos, alas. I may have been on photo burnout from the safari at that point!

We still had some time before our 3:15 Kali FP+, so we wandered some more...

Now, *that* is a food truck!


I'm not sure why there was a skywriter, but there was a happy one!


I love these!

But...now I need to help dd find a lost book...

 

[irene_dsc]

Book has been found - naturally, by her, about a minute after I finally agreed to help her.

So, back to AK...

Do you know where we are? Are we getting close to something?




Expedition Everest!

None of us had ridden this one before, so it would be new for all of us. I had gone back and forth on whether or not to do a FP+, since I wasn't sure if dd would be brave enough to do it. I shouldn't have been worried. Even though we had to wait a while, she LOVED it! It was a bit much for me, so even though I survived it, I was just as happy to be done with it! At least I figured out exactly when we were going to go backwards, since at that point, it was pretty obvious we couldn't go forwards!!!

This was also a pretty cool themed queue, fwiw.

Next, on to Kali River Rapids! Big water raft rides have always been a family favorite. We always make our raft into the party raft, and make sure to get everyone into the spirit of getting totally soaked. At least this time the weather was right for it! When we were there before in January, I had prepared with total changes of clothes for everyone, including footwear. This time I wasn't quite as worried, but we did have correct footwear for everyone.

We had a great group in our raft, as usual. Unfortunately, since it was a 120 minute standby wait, we didn't get to get back in line to immediately ride it again, this time around! Yes, that is ds's favorite thing to do...

So, we dried off (dh had remembered to pack a small hand towel), and headed over to Dinosaur. I think I was the only one who really got into this one. Just the right amount of corniness for me, I guess. But none of us really liked the motion part and we were all a teensy bit queasy at the end. So, we had to search out some ice cream, of course. We found a place back in the corner with hand packed ice cream - that was really, really slow. I can't remember exactly what it was called. At least we finally got to sit and enjoy our ice cream, and try to decide what to do next.

Ds was pretty much ready to be done with the day at that point. Dd really wanted to ride Everest again. We decided to let her and dh go to Everest, and ds and I would wander around and meet up in the center area again (somehow we ended up there during our discussion). So, ds and I went and looked at some shops. We ended up over by Everest, and he noticed that the single rider line had only a 15 minute wait. So, he decided to hop on, while I was waiting for them.

Naturally, ds got out right around when dd and dh finished their ride. And by this time, the single rider line was getting even shorter. So, the kids decided to ride it again! And again! I think they rode it 4 or 5 times in a row before they decided they were finally done with it. Dh and I were happy to sit and enjoy some quiet time on a nice rock near the exit while they got their fill of getting chased by the Yeti...

Finally, we headed to our car...

 

[irene_dsc]

It's unanimous. We can't remember what we had for dinner that night!

But, we must've eaten something! I'm thinking possibly we had leftovers or something back at the condo?

This was the night before our resort / down day, and we were all pretty wiped out from 3 straight days of parks.

I needed to do laundry, since we didn't necessarily have enough spring/summer clothes for everyone yet, and to pack lighter. Plus, we were still exhausted from everything else that had been going on. Ds was excited that he would have a day where he didn't need to go anywhere.

Unfortunately, it was a little cooler than I was hoping, so just dh and the kids went down to the pool in the morning, while I got the laundry going. Naturally, I needed to do 2 loads, since I had both darks and lights, and I didn't necessarily trust leaving them alone, since they were unfamiliar appliances. So, I did a little research on Universal online in preparation for our next couple of days, since I had a feeling I wasn't quite prepared. For one thing, I hadn't realized how much the motion rides would upset us, and how much dd would like thrill rides. So, I had to pretty much completely revisit what we wanted to do, and what not to do!

When the rest of them came up from the pool, ds said something about a sign by the elevators saying that they would be shutting off the water for a couple hours for some maintenance. What?! At least we had run the washer already, and I was just waiting on the dryer!!! Also, we didn't really need water for our lunches.

It was still fairly cool outside, so once the dryer was done, I still didn't really feel like swimming. So, dh and I went for a short walk, and then hung out by the pool with our books for a bit. I think dh was a little disappointed that I didn't have a bigger plan, but we did have dinner reservations for our date night, and I had spent the morning doing chores, basically. So, I wanted to chill! Plus, we also needed to go get a few more groceries so the kids would have dinner while we were gone.

But, first, we needed water! We kept checking, and it still wasn't working. We finally decided to ask at the front desk. There was also another guy at the pool who was pretty peeved about the whole thing, too. It turned out, they had gone to replace a part, and had the wrong part, and had to wait for the right part. Two hours, of course. But, they were just finishing up - yay! We also got a refund of our resort fee for the day ($15), which isn't much, but better than a kick in the pants, lol.

So, we got some dinner for the kids at the store (I forget what, sorry!), and got changed for our date night...

 

[KathyM2]

Sounds like an awesome AK day...I think Dinosaur would bother me too....you are re-affirming my decision to maybe not do it lol. That is so funny that you said DH may have been disspointed at the lack of more of a plan...you can't every make them happy huh? I don't know about you...but my DH makes fun of me for planning every spare moment...but if I don't he's all "what are we gonna do now?" And of course it's up to me to come up with something...so yeah...but sometimes it's nice to plan ...to do nothing!! Weird about the whole water thing though...were you able to even shower to get ready for dinner?

 

[irene_dsc]

That is so funny that you said DH may have been dissapointed at the lack of more of a plan...you can't every make them happy huh?

Lol, I think it was more that he was hoping to go somewhere besides the pool and dinner and groceries. But, what about a relaxing day off did he not understand?

Weird about the whole water thing though...were you able to even shower to get ready for dinner?

I either showered in the morning, or after the water got back on. I don't remember it being an issue, so I suspect I probably did it in the morning.

 

[irene_dsc]

Not sure if I'll get to a TR update tonight, but our current Disney update was that we went to see Tomorrowland this afternoon! We found it appropriate to try out the new movie theatre nearby with the fancy reclining seats - a futuristic theater for a futuristic movie theme!


Dd put the divider down between her seats for that shot - getting a little too comfy!

Even though we've seen a ton of ads and trailers, amazingly, they really didn't give much away! I was pretty amazed about that, all things considered. They even fooled us completely about the direction the plot was going to go, actually. I'll try not to include any spoilers, so you can enjoy it, too.

I will say, it really had a feel for me of what Walt Disney was originally thinking about when he designed EPCOT, and the Tomorrowland area. It was also incredibly visually stunning, so I highly recommend seeing it on a big screen (and preferably more than 3 rows back from the front!)

 

[KathyM2]

I'm so happy to see you giving Tomorrowland good reviews...I really want to take the kids to see it...no idea when we will have time but...yay!

 

[irene_dsc]

I'm so happy to see you giving Tomorrowland good reviews...I really want to take the kids to see it...no idea when we will have time but...yay!

There are a ton of holes in the plot, I have to admit. If you think about it too much, you'll probably start getting annoyed with it. But it was still amazing.

 

[irene_dsc]

So, when I left us, we had just gotten water back at the condo, and were getting ready for our date night!

Since this is the off-site trip, we were checking out an off-site restaurant for date night! It had occurred to us that since we were in Florida, one type of food we could get more authentically there than at home is Cuban food. We get plenty of Mexican food up by us, but not really Cuban. Dh did a little tripadvisor digging, and found a place called Cuba Libre on International Drive. It's a small chain (oddly scattered in different cities), and not necessarily the most authentic, but it sounded like fun. And since it turns into a nightclub later, we figured I might be able to wear a cute dress and not look totally out of place!

This was our first time going to International Drive, so we didn't know quite what to expect. I did know that there are lots of hotels there. I didn't realize that there's also a convention center, and we saw lots of people much more dressed up than I was used to. It was also rather confusing to figure out where we were going. Fortunately, we had gotten a phone call that morning to confirm our reservation (I had used Open Table), and she mentioned that they had valet. The entire mall (I guess I'd call it a lifestyle mall, if you know what that means - mainly restaurants and higher end stores, all outside) had shared valet parking. We were very happy that we were plenty early, so we were able to circle and get back into the right position for the valet parking!

We were still early, so we wandered around a little bit. Dh wanted a picture of me in my green dress, and then a nice man offered to take photos of us if we would take a photo of him.



Dh really liked the graphics for the mall map sign...


and the sign...


There were a bunch of restaurants, but not a lot of stores.

After we wandered around, we checked into the restaurant, and decided to sit outside on the patio.

We had a really hard time deciding what to order, so we finally decided to share the Chef's Tasting Menu and have the full experience. (I'm not sure this saved us much over going to a Disney restaurant, after all, at $40 a person! )


I'm totally cheating and looking at the online menu to help me with this part. http://www.cubalibrerestaurant.com/en/orlando/menus/chefs-tasting/ Since I posted the link, I won't try to list everything out! I do remember that trying all the different things was the best part, and not so much the individual foods. I really liked the forbidden rice, of all things! It's not just the name - it's actually quite delicious!

This photo is from the appetizers...



Look at all that food! It was almost like a buffet, except that we didn't have to go and get it ourselves! We also enjoyed our mojitos, since we were out on date night.

But, we didn't stay out too late, since we wanted to get up early the next day for Universal!

On the way home, I took a couple more photos:
The biggest Walgreens I've ever seen! (They are headquartered near Chicago - a pharmacy/drugstore chain)


And a very funky McDonalds! (I used to work at the corporate offices, in the architecture department, but I never got to work on one this cool!)


When we got back, dh figured out that the Google April Fool's prank for Google Maps was to make certain areas into a Pacman game!


I was pretty bad at this, I have to admit, but it was hilarious! They only left it up for a few days, alas. Last year, they let you search for Pokemon all over the world, and they left that up for around a month, iirc. Dd and I had a lot of fun with that one, of course.

But, it was now time to go to sleep...

 

[KathyM2]

Yay for date night!! That cuban food looked delish! I don't think I've ever tried Cuban...is it sorta like...spanish? or mexican? Hmm I will check out your link. If we had more time, I'd consider renting a car and busting out of the Disney bubble once in a while...sometimes you forget that there's a whole world out there in Orlando lol...but being in the Disney bubble has good and bad points about it. I hate driving when I don't know my way around...so saving that for when DH is with us lol. But I know we will miss out on a lot of good restaurants...I know you didn't save money...but you probably get better food for the money...I know..I probably will get flamed for saying that...but you know...you pay for just being anywhere Disney...

 

[irene_dsc]

Yay for date night!! That cuban food looked delish! I don't think I've ever tried Cuban...is it sorta like...spanish? or mexican? Hmm I will check out your link. If we had more time, I'd consider renting a car and busting out of the Disney bubble once in a while...sometimes you forget that there's a whole world out there in Orlando lol...but being in the Disney bubble has good and bad points about it. I hate driving when I don't know my way around...so saving that for when DH is with us lol. But I know we will miss out on a lot of good restaurants...I know you didn't save money...but you probably get better food for the money...I know..I probably will get flamed for saying that...but you know...you pay for just being anywhere Disney...

Cuban food is sorta like Spanish, and sorta like Mexican, but not exactly like either, I guess. And I don't think we would've rented a car just to go to restaurants - but since we drove and *had* the car, we figured we should take advantage of it! It's also a lot easier when you have an adult driver plus an adult navigator. My kids still need to learn how to help with navigation - it makes the mother/daughter Pokemon tournament trips just that much more interesting!

And, y'know, it's possible we did save money over certain Disney restaurants we *could've* chosen!

 

[ursalita]

I was right - they enjoyed it.

Flights of Wonder is so cool. Not surprised they enjoyed it.

I'm not sure why there was a skywriter, but there was a happy one!

I've seen a lot of photos of skywriting in various TRs but I did't see any while I was there.

We had a great group in our raft, as usual. Unfortunately, since it was a 120 minute standby wait, we didn't get to get back in line to immediately ride it again, this time around! Yes, that is ds's favorite thing to do...

Sounds like our experience. Our standby wait was 5 mintues so the boys immediately hopped in line to ride again.

Naturally, ds got out right around when dd and dh finished their ride.

Nice timing/1

So, the kids decided to ride it again! And again! I think they rode it 4 or 5 times in a row before they decided they were finally done with it.

What fun!

Dh and I were happy to sit and enjoy some quiet time on a nice rock near the exit while they got their fill of getting chased by the Yeti...

How nice that you were able to have a date night. The food looks so good!

 

[irene_dsc]

Sounds like our experience. Our standby wait was 5 mintues so the boys immediately hopped in line to ride again.

That's about what it was like our first trip - in January, of course!

How nice that you were able to have a date night. The food looks so good!

It *was* good! I love that we don't need a babysitter anymore for us to go out on a date!

 

[irene_dsc]

Wow, am I behind on updates! This past weekend, dd and I went to Madison for Pokemon Regionals (video game version)! That was her second regionals, and it is fun because other people from our local Pokemon League go, too. So, we have friends to hang out with. She did pretty well, but was hoping to do better, so now she's plotting her next team for Nationals in early July. But, I didn't bring my laptop, so no time to do Dis updates! We've also had plenty of other stuff going on - wrapping up our last Girl Scout meeting of the year, getting ready for ds' middle school graduation, dd's dance recital, work...

 

[irene_dsc]

Finally, time to visit the Dark Side! We'd all been excited to try this out, since we'd never been, and all of us except ds are fairly big Harry Potter fans.

I had heard that Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley get very crowded in the middle of the day, so our plan was to hit the big HP rides first, take a quick look around, then go do other things, and not come back until at least 6 or 7 pm to enjoy the scenery without the crowds. We had also gotten hoppers - I mean, Park to Park tickets - simply so we could ride the Hogwarts Express. Alas, I couldn't get myself to also spring for the express pass on top of that - I think it would've been $100-$150 each, per day, depending on which type we had gotten! They vary the prices depending on how crowded they think it will be, to ensure that you are getting what you pay for. So, I could already tell we were going at a super busy time, just from those prices!

Naturally, we didn't get there quite at rope drop, so by the time we made our way to Hogsmeade and Forbidden Journey, there was a pretty long line. The others noticed that there was a single rider line, and insisted that we take advantage. This immediately annoyed me, since of course, I wanted to see all the cool stuff in the queue! But, no one else was willing to wait, and I gave in begrudgingly and went in the single rider line with everyone. The ride itself was very cool, although the 3d effects and general motion of the ride did not really agree with either dh or me! I'm glad we did it, but once was definitely enough for me.

After that, we noticed that Dueling Dragons had a very short wait, so the others got in line while I walked around and took some photos.



I went inside Honeydukes to look at all the sweets...


I love how they set up everything! Not so much loving the prices, however! With Chocolate Frogs at about $14 each, I decided to skip them, and not have to worry about them melting in the heat. (We finally were going to have a hot day!) We had said we were going to get some Every Flavored Beans, but I figured I should wait until dd was with me so she could experience the whole thing.


They have a permanent Hogwarts Express set up for photo ops, for those who didn't spring for the hoppers.





A Butterbeer stand!

I had plenty of time to take photos, since the kids really loved the Dragon Challenge coaster, and discovered that you could loop back around and get in the single rider line without having to wait through the whole line again. For whatever reason, that coaster never seemed to have that long of a line. But as you can see, Hogsmeade was already getting pretty crowded.

So, we decided it was time to beat a tactical retreat, as per plan.

Next, we decided to tackle the Hulk. This would be yet another big coaster where I would let everyone else ride while I went and took photos. But, can you blame me???


That thing is huge! And it goes upside down, *AND* with a big drop. Totally not my kind of thing!!! I am a total wuss about roller coasters, can you tell? Space Mountain is just about perfect for me, but no more than that. Plus, Hulk is LOUD. I knew right away I did *not* want to hang out nearby the whole time - and Seuss Landing was calling my name...

 

[irene_dsc]

Now, I have to admit, when I first found out that there was a Seuss themed carousel, I just *had* to ride it. And since the kids were spurning anything that wasn't a thrill ride, I figured this was my golden opportunity to ride it!

Somehow, I didn't take a photo of the rest of the Caro-Seussel! I'm not quite sure how that happened!

Anyhow, I waited in line with all the little kids and their families, feeling just a little bit silly, but excited, anyhow. They had all sorts of Seussical animals on that carousel! The line did move pretty slowly, and there wasn't anything especially interesting in the line, but finally, I got to ride it, yay!

When I was done, I took a look at the wait time for Cat in the Hat, but was worried I didn't have enough time to ride that, and get back in time to meet the family. So, I took a bunch of photos...













I said goodbye to Seuss Landing, and headed back to see how well my family had dealt with the Hulk.

So, I settled in to wait near the Hulk, in the nice loud entry/exit area. And waited. And waited a little more. Then, I noticed that people were leaving the ride in much larger numbers than had previously happened - and the ride was not going. At least it wasn't nearly as loud when the ride wasn't going! The wait time sign went to 0 (or stopped, I forget exactly). People were exiting the ride in droves. Still, no family. Since US is very strict about nothing in pockets for this ride, no one in the family besides me has a cell phone, so I can't ask them what is going on and where they are. Finally, the waves of people leaving the ride seem to be done, and no family. What the frickety-frack is going on???

Just when I was started to really worry, they switch the wait time from 0 to 30 minutes! I go and ask a CM (not sure what they call them at US?) if some people had stayed in line when they stopped the ride, and he said yes. So, I figured, they must've been almost at the end of the line when it was delayed, and decided to wait. So, I patiently go back and wait some more...

Thankfully, it wasn't too much longer before they came out! I was right - they were just at the point where they could see people loading when the line stopped, and since they were so close, they decided to wait.

Then, we needed to decide what to do next. The CMs(?) had been advising everyone to go on Spiderman when Hulk was closed, so we figured it would be crowded. We started walking that way, anyhow. That area has a lot of very bright, over the top graphics, and we quickly felt overloaded and over stimulated. We also realized we were hungry for lunch. I hadn't really investigated the restaurants that much, since they hadn't gotten that much hype. But, we weren't very excited about the restaurants in the Marvel Super Hero area. Fortunately, dh remembered a restaurant we had seen on the way in:



Confisco Grille! This place looked like it would have some interesting theming, and the menu looked like it had something everyone would eat, which is always a good thing. Looking back at the menu, I think I had the BBQ Pulled Pork sandwich. I do remember that everyone enjoyed their food.

 

[ursalita]

WOW! That is quite the coaster. I'm sorry you didn't get to see the HP queue. I home we make it to Universal some day.

 

[irene_dsc]

As is usual for our first day somewhere, we were spending a lot more time than necessary wandering around, and not being efficient with our time. We headed back to Seuss Landing, since dd had decided that she also wanted to ride the Caro-Seussel. I tried talking her into Cat in the Hat instead, since that would make one ride on Forbidden Journey and 2 carousel rides as my grand total rides so far that day, but I had sold the coolness of riding Seuss characters a little too well, and had to give in to riding it again! Ds decided he was way too old for such childish things, so he and dh waited for us.



Then, we wandered through to the Lost Continent...




Since dd had just finished reading the Percy Jackson books, she was disappointed that Poseiden's Fury was not a Percy Jackson attraction! She also wasn't excited about a walk-through attraction, so we decided to skip it for now. We did check out Mythos, which is the top-rated restaurant at US/IOA, and decided we might try it for lunch the next day.

It was getting hotter, and the wait times for all the water rides were getting longer (I think they were all 1-2 hours at that point!), so we decided this would be a good time to take the Hogwarts Express, and leave Islands of Adventure for now. Somehow, I didn't take any photos on our first trip, so you'll have to wait for the next set of updates for Hogwarts Express photos! Besides, I think the London station is more photogenic. I mainly remember walking through a long, empty line, and not a lot of people, after we scanned our passes and did our fingerprint scans at the station entrance.

The Hogwarts Express ride is pretty cool, but I don't want to give too much away. Eventually, we arrived at Universal Studios...



I'm actually not sure exactly where this fountain/statue is. Anyone?

But, we had to take photos with the Knight Bus...




We peeked into the Diagon Alley entrance, but it was totally jam-packed with people. So, we decided we would definitely have to come back later, even though ds was getting a little grumpy about the idea of staying late.

So, time to explore Universal Studios! We tried out Men in Black - US's version of Buzz Lightyear. It was fun, but not that memorable. We wandered past the Woody Woodpecker kid area, but of course, the 10 and 13 year olds were way too old to consider looking at anything there, and we kept on walking. The Hollywood area was refreshingly civilized, in comparison to a lot of the other more crowded areas.

Next, Terminator 2! This was a very well-done show, where they combined live action and pre-filmed sections with 3d and lots of special effects. Ds has seen some of them, but not dd - a little too violent for her taste. She was pretty much ok with the show, but I don't think it was her favorite.

The good thing about US on hot days is that it has lots of shows, and they are all air conditioned. T2 was also near Schwab's Pharmacy - an old-fashioned drugstore with malts and such! (Somehow I doubt you could actually get medicine there! ) We made a beeline towards the ice cream, and knowing our family, everyone got a malt, and they were quite yummy.

 

[irene_dsc]

WOW! That is quite the coaster. I'm sorry you didn't get to see the HP queue. I home we make it to Universal some day.

Yeah, Universal definitely ups the thrill factor with their coasters! And I was definitely annoyed about missing the queue - but thankfully, we do have another day...

I highly recommend visiting Universal with older kids, especially once they've read the Harry Potter books. If you can, I advise doing it in a separate trip from Disney, since you lose all of your cheaper ticket days by combining them in one trip! And if you are there on a busy time, definitely check out staying on-site for the express pass perks! But since we don't know when we'll come back, we wanted to make sure and do both - and I hadn't realized about the express pass thing when I reserved our condo. I think I still would've done it that way, just for the space, however. It's hard to say...

 

[irene_dsc]

Since it's been so long, I had to review some of our day with dh, to try and remember what we did! Now I feel like I need to try and get through everything we reviewed, before I forget it again!

Next, we split up. Ds wanted to do the Transformers attraction, but dd didn't really want to do it, especially not right after the Terminator show. So, we went and did the Disaster! attraction. That was actually a lot of fun, and my favorite show of the entire trip. Basically, it's an audience participation show, where the idea is that they are casting roles for a disaster movie. The cast member did a great job hamming it up with all of the audience volunteers. They move you through a few spaces, and mostly, the rest of the group is the audience, but they do have one section at the end that is more of a ride experience, where they are filming a subway scene during a fake explosion (or was it an earthquake? I forget!) I think that last part mollified dd that at least she got some sort of a thrill ride experience during her show.

Then, we met up again and everyone went on the Mummy ride. This is another intense 3d simulator ride. I thought it had really good theming, although again, I'm getting a little old for these sorts of things! We were also realizing that Universal really likes using flame and fake smoke effects!

At this point, ds was pretty much ready to call it a day. But, we hadn't had a chance to go to Diagon Alley yet! We decided to check and see if the crowds were more manageable, and thankfully, there was now enough space to walk around comfortably. (Granted, we hadn't even gone past the entrance when we looked earlier!) We quickly took some photos...

That was my only decent photo inside Weasleys, alas. But, dd found the U-No-Poo quite hilarious.



But of course, we also had to get some Butterbear!



I think we got 2 to share, since we didn't know how much we would like it. It is like a cream soda, with a foamy top. Dd didn't like the foam, and requested a straw. The server tried to talk me out of the straw, but when I said that my daughter didn't like the foam, she was more understanding and let me have the straw - even if we would lose some of the authenticity, lol.

Then, we wandered around a little more...



I think this was my favorite storefront - it totally made me crack up! There were tons of little details like that all over the place, and I definitely didn't get photos of everything.



As you can see, there was more space for people to spread out in Diagon Alley.



Alas, you couldn't enter the Museum of Muggle Curiosities...


And the famous dragon at Gringotts!

Ds was getting antsy, but dd had really wanted to get a Hogwarts t-shirt while we were there. Dh had seen some cute ones, and steered us into a store to make sure we had one for her to wear on our second day. We had seen a ton of Harry Potter t-shirts, and even full school robes while we were there. We had pretty much decided that dd probably belonged more in Ravenclaw than Gryffindor, so she picked out a cute striped t-shirt with the crest picked out in metal circles. She doesn't normally wear adult sizes, so we got her an extra-small.

Once she had her t-shirt, we were ready to leave for the day. We had the long walk back through the park and City Walk, of course, since we were at the far end. On the way back to the resort, we stopped at Panera for a quick dinner, which was so much more peaceful and affordable than anything in the parks!

Thus endeth the first day on the Dark Side...